The American Conspiracy: An Agent's Beginning...another disappointing read

I was really looking forward to reading "The American Conspiracy: An Agent's Beginning", as I enjoy discovering new authors, and spy/government thrillers are is of my favorite genres.

The first page drew my attention, and I settled in, expecting an interesting, intriguing story. By the end of the first chapter, it was a struggle to not put the book down. Unfortunately, this was not because it was too good, rather because it was so clumsily worded, and the attempt to make the well-worn "I was raised by the CIA, but I didn't know it until they came knocking on my door one day" device different from all those that came before resulted in a convoluted and contrived storyline.

Main character, Landers is plucked from his job as a park ranger to run the environmental section of the World Government (which, despite its name, is a black ops division of the United States). He is immediately sent on a globe-trotting mission to save the planet from the effects of the mysterious erosion of the Great Barrier Reef. To overcome his lack of training and leadership skills, he is teamed with a couple of more experienced agents to get the job done. Friends are made, bad guys are thwarted, respect is earned...just another day in the life of the agent of a shady government organization.

The inexplicitly ponderous working of the story so overwhelmed any plot that it was impossible to read more than a couple of pages before stopping in frustration and annoyance. No one - not real people, not book characters, not movie characters, not college professors - speaks in long, uninterrupted paragraphs like J. Perry's characters. I found myself, first, hugely distracted by the incomprehensibility of employing such a method, and second, by the numerous typographical errors. I spent more time trying to move through the sea of long-winded monologues and creating an errata sheet in my head than in paying attention to the action, which was far too widely spaced. Mr. Perry is not a terrible writer who has no future in the business. He would have had a far better book if he had worked closely with an editor to tighten and tone his efforts. My hope is that he does that with the promised sequel.

I received a complimentary copy of "The American Conspiracy: An Agent's Beginning" as a member of the Dorrance Publishing Book Review Team. Visit dorrancebookstore.com to learn how you can become a member of the Book Review Team.

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